Brevity is the Soul of Lit
“You send too many emails,”
I was once, twice, many times told.
“Why. not hang on and compound your fractured emails and send one in summary.”
“For that you’d just need to read to read my poems.
Here is a poem in memory of Craig Walls, who struggled long and hard with what turned out to be Lyme disease. I agreed to write one in Craig’s honour when he died quite a long time ago. Poetry take a long time, that is usually. I was gratified I was hired at the Department of Culture in the “aughts” we ought to have done this we ought to have done that; but with a combination of pulling from above and pushing from below we we’re able create a Publishing and Printing Tax Credit that didn’t cost very much but (provided millions in support to Manitoba publishers), lasted a long time. Here then is a poem, for Craig.
CRAIG PHILLIP WALLS
BORN: OCT 04, 1948
DATE OF PASSING: MAR 31, 2013
Written 2023 by Victor Enns, printed October 15, 2024
DEAR CRAIG
Too late, the New Yorker’s appreciation
of Lyme disease, ranked now as number three
of infectious diseases, chlamydia and syphilis
back on the top of the charts, measles coming up
fast on the inside. Yeah, now it’s a real thing, Craig
as I remember your hand stroking your head.
The medicos hunt ticks in Central Park,
all the best neighbourhoods wait for the count
Bloody little beggars, well no that’s not how
it works, but they did make you sick, didn’t kill you
didn’t make you stronger. Ticks did not deliver the killing
blow, nor did you crash your bike into an abutment
looking for a road, any road, different than the one
you were on.
Let’s make ignorance shameful
again, let ignorance be the new
smoking: you old enough to remember
magazine and television advertising cigarettes
as harmless. Cool as James Dean, you were well dressed
well pressed and full of thwarted ambitions now
turning to ash in the crematorium with the rest of you.
You were sixty-four years old, as old as I am now
your heart attack, surprised us one last time,
thinking about your next bike trip in Obama’s USA
maybe now with Peter Fonda riding that inter-galactic highway
at warp speed, taking a load off Fanny and Anna Lee,
you have been released.